


sweet dream

by silverkatana



Category: Super Junior
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 23:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19778971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: — "hey heechul,” jungsoo mumbles, his voice noticeably more slurred than before, and a lopsided smile fixed across his lips as he reaches over to tap heechul lightly on his shoulder, “you wanna unwind some more?”; alternatively :[ donghae (10:12)did u really ditch me at the clubdonghae (10:17)am i leftover bread or whatyou went hunting for fresh new slices of bread and left me there growing mould or something:( ](alternatively: jungsoo & heechul meet in the club one day and hit it off from there)





	sweet dream

The lights are blaring in vivid shades of blue and purple, and the music blasting so loud that Heechul’s certain he can feel it thrumming straight through his bones. He’s lost Donghae to the crowd already - it’s been, what, twenty minutes? - after a single shot of tequila. The younger of the two has never been good at holding his alcohol - terrible, actually - and Heechul’s beginning to wonder if he should have prevented him from taking such a strong drink.

_ Well, _ he shrugs inwardly, giving up on scanning the mass of barely sober, half-dancing half-stumbling people before him.  _ I’ll find him eventually.  _

“Got no one to hang out with?” the bartender cracks with a small grin, handing Heechul a glass of water alongside his alcohol.

Heechul snorts; he’s come to this specific club for a long time now, and mostly at the same time on the same day, so if anyone in this place were to know that he’s not really the lone wolf type of guy, the bartender would. But then again, he’s beginning to grow tired of people nowadays. No more large, obnoxious groups of friends; just him and one or two, like Donghae. Taking a sip of his water, he reflects that it’s a welcome change. 

“Nah, I brought a friend,” he responds, gesturing vaguely towards the crowd, “He’s probably drunk already, though, and I can’t be bothered to save his ass.”

“Real good friend you are,” the bartender remarks, “Plan on meeting anyone anytime soon? Or has it been too soon after the breakup?” A hesitant pause, and then, a bit meeker, “I’m sorry, am I allowed to talk about that?”

Heechul disguises his choking on his water as a scoff, dismissing the bartender’s words with a wave of his hand.  _ He knows about my relationship status better than my friends do. Huh, I guess I’ve become too reclusive nowadays.  _ “Nah, that was ages ago.”  _ Not really, but, well.  _ “After the hell of a rollercoaster relationship we went through, though, I think she’s scarred me enough to stay off relationships for a while/”

The bartender’s eyebrows furrow a little, half in perplexion, half in amusement. “That bad? Really? To scare  _ you _ off?”

“She cheated,” Heechul mutters, “and when I tried to breakup with her she screamed at me and acted like  _ she _ was the victim.” A pause. “And that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

“Damn.” The bartender winces, and as Heechul reminisces the relationship, the bitter feeling that he’s buried deep in his subconscious springs back to life and leaves acrid tastes along his tongue and burning sensations in the way his heart begins to pound faster against his ribcages.

“Yeah, man, I don’t think I want to be looking for relationships that quick.” Heechul reaches for his alcohol and downs it in a quick gulp, wincing slightly at the harsh burn against the back of his throat. It’s strong, which is good. He’s not quite as alcohol intolerant as Donghae, but nowadays he’s convinced the state his life has fallen into is so dreadful it’s easier to spend the evenings - and hopefully the mornings after too - passed out and not having to think. Or do anything, really, aside from lying unconscious.

“One night stands, then?” the bartender questions, taking Heechul’s shot glass from him and pouring him a refill.

Heechul downs it again to get rid of the sour taste left on his tongue from thinking about his ex from hell. “Don’t think so,” he replies, “Just coming here to grab some strong stuff, and let Donghae have his fun. Then I’ll be going.”

Approximately forty-five minutes later, Heechul’s stumble-walking through the crowd, slipping past shifting bodies and blurred faces, eyes narrowed and searching unseeingly, gaze unfocused but trying nevertheless. He’s tried calling Donghae, but the first two times he did Donghae never answered, and when he tried it again he called Siwon instead by accident and got chided for being up and about at some ungodly hour at night. 

“Looking for a friend of yours?” There’s a voice low and quiet near to him and he resists the urge to flinch away out of surprise; he turns and squints at whoever is standing in front of him. Decidedly  _ not _ Donghae, but as his brain begins to slowly take in the features of the man before him, he finds himself reconsidering what he can remember of his words.

_ What the hell, he’s hot. And I don’t know what I said about one night stands, but I’d be his one night stand… _ He’s unique, kind of, different from the usual people Heechul runs into in the clubs. His hair is dyed a soft shade of orange, although it comes off as kind of pink-brown in the purple-blue lights. He looks tired but energised all at once, and his voice holds a soft but somewhat rough tone. He reminds Heechul a lot of one of those typical city boys who spend all day in stuffy offices in polished black suits and pasted-on, straight row of white teeth smiles, but somehow rough around the edges still, like he’s trying to reconcile a rebellious side of him with his perfect hard-worker side and failing.

He’s intriguing, and for a moment Heechul forgets all about Donghae - until the man in front of him clears his throat with a tiny smile, and Heechul is reminded of his question. “Uh, yeah. Lost him a while ago, and he’s not answering my calls.”

“Ah.” The man with orange hair brushes a hand through said hair, shooting Heechul another one of his soft smiles. “Good luck with finding him, then.”

Heechul nods his head and murmurs out a thanks in response; he’s about to walk away to hunt down Donghae once more when something comes over him - he’s ninety percent convinced it’s the alcohol talking, but now that he’s downed way too many shots, he doesn’t know if he’s even thinking straight enough to be convinced of anything, so he ignores his thoughts - and he turns back to call out to the person who has managed to captivate his interest in such a short time.

“Wait.” When did it become so hard to speak? It must be the alcohol. “Uh. What’s your name?”

The man’s eyes are wide with surprise, but his expression melts into one of warmth and cautious friendliness soon after. “Me? I’m Jungsoo, it’s a pleasure to meet you. What’s yours?”

“Heechul,” he says, taking in the details of Jungsoo’s facial features as discreetly as a drunk person can, “How old are you?”

Jungsoo doesn’t seem to mind the way Heechul’s currently checking him out - either that, or Heechul’s better at being discreet than he thought, but he is quite convinced that it’s the former. “I’m born in 1983,” Jungsoo replies. “I’ve never had someone ask for my name or age in the club, but it’s not a bad change.”

“Oh.” Heechul exhales slowly, “I’m the same age as you, then.” He falls silent, trying to process Jungsoo’s words, and he flushes slightly as he responds, “I mean, yeah. I guess people don’t really ask for that kind of stuff here. They all just come here to hang with their friends or hook up, mostly.”

Jungsoo chuckles, seemingly more at ease knowing that the two of them are of the same age. “Why’re you straying from the norm, then?”

Heechul freezes, eyes darting from Jungsoo’s gaze to his shoes and back to his eyes again. “I - I don’t know, I guess.”  _ I think telling someone that I find them really interesting upon meeting for the very first time is a bit creepy, especially in a club in the middle of the night _ . Unfortunately, when he’s intoxicated, his mouth is especially terrible at matching up with his mind, and he hears himself saying “I found you really interesting when I first saw you” before he can register himself saying it. He immediately feels the rising urge to slap himself, and then upon seeing the half-uncertain, half-amused look on Jungsoo’s face, he continues, “You just seem different, somehow. Like, you remind me of one of those typical office workers, but with some other hidden side. Like, why did you come here alone anyway?”

And then he  _ does _ slap his hand over his mouth, because he’s been running his mouth for too long and as drunk as he is, it’s still embarrassing. Damn it, it would have been much easier if he had just passed out at the bar. Now his ears feel like they’ve just returned home from a trip where a volcano was the place of residence, even in the cold air-conditioning of the club, and he’s pretty sure Jungsoo would be able feel the awkwardness and chagrin radiating from him from ten miles away.

“Hey, that’s okay,” Jungsoo laughs at his clear discomfort, his eyes soft as he makes a gesture for Heechul to lower his hand, “I think it’s really nice, honestly. It’s been a while since someone’s taken an interest in me  _ and _ wanted to actually learn about me instead of just wanting to get in my pants.”

“You’re a fucking angel,” Heechul mutters in response, his ears still feeling hot, but maybe not boiling point-hot this time. “I mean, uh, well. Was I right?”

Jungsoo blinks owlishly, a sheepishly crooked grin crossing his lips as he scratches his neck. “I’m sorry, but right about what? My memory’s a little wacky once I get a couple of drinks into my system.”

“You being one of those office worker type guys,” Heechul says with a smile of his own, “And being different from them.”

Jungsoo lets out a small giggle at that, a soft airy noise that Heechul’s surprisingly pleased to hear.  _ You came here to grab drinks, not make friends with a complete stranger, damn it.  _ “Yeah, I’m one of those boring dudes who work at those tall buildings in Seoul,” he admits, “It was that obvious, huh?” Then he stops talking for a second, which stretches into a few seconds, and when he finally clears his throat and speaks again he adds in a softer tone, “Although I recently lost my job at one of those said fancy buildings. Which is mostly what brought me here to unwind. Oh, and I got dumped by an ex, but well, I guess my life’s just really crappy this year.”

“Ah.” Heechul isn’t quite sure how to respond to that. He’s always been terrible at sympathising - he  _ does  _ feel sympathy, only that when he tries to search for the appropriate words to use to express his feelings his vocabulary in Korean suddenly becomes awfully limited - and he’s never really dealt with these kinds of situations a lot before, with most just being his friends or family voicing out their sympathies and him adding a few murmurs or consolations on top of their words. So he settles on, “Yeah, well, that makes the two of us. I mean, getting dumped, that is.”

In hindsight, he isn’t sure that that’s really the appropriate response, given the look of surprise crossing Jungsoo’s face, but to his relief it shifts over to a more relaxed expression before a laugh escapes Jungsoo’s lips. “Good to know someone else feels the same way as me, then.”

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and considering that it’s probably Donghae, he’s about to reach in to answer the call before Jungsoo asks, “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you work as?”

Heechul lets his arm drop to his side. Donghae can wait for a few minutes. “I work in the music industry,” he says, “I’m not one of those idols or anything, but I work with my partner Kyunghoon from time to time. It’s nothing intense, so it isn’t that high-paying, but good enough. I like it.”

“Oh, really?” Jungsoo’s eyes are alight with interest. “I’ll check you guys out when I have time, it sounds interesting.”

Heechul is caught between being proud of his work and being unnaturally self-conscious, so he ends up blurting out in a bit of a too-fast string of words, punctuated with the occasional hesitations and ‘uh’s’, “I really hope you like it, it might not be your cup of tea though, but that’s okay, you really don’t have to.”

Jungsoo takes a moment to process his sentence that seems more like rushed thoughts pouring out of his mind straight through his mouth, and laughs lightly. “I’m sure I’ll love the songs.”

Oh, so now his ears are hot again. “So, um.” He tries to change the subject in a barely-there attempt to save himself from the pit of embarrassment he’s dug for himself. “What brings you here?”

Jungsoo grins widely, and Heechul finds himself committing that to memory, too. “I already answered that.”

“Right.” Heechul blames it on the alcohol, making his brain all fuzzy and unable to properly remember what people told him two minutes ago. “So, did you manage to do it? Unwind?”

“Kind of. Coming to a club alone when you’re not really an outgoing person does have its repercussions,” Jungsoo says with a wave of his hand towards the groups of people hanging out and having fun all over the place. “Want to grab a drink with me, then? I can tell both of us need to unwind from stuff.”

Heechul’s phone buzzes in his pocket again, and he’s quite certain that grabbing yet another drink might be another bad decision of his, but then again, this oddly interesting stranger is in front of him inviting him for a round of drinks.

He shrugs. “Sure, why not?”

Donghae will live.

“And I think that’s enough alcohol for tonight,” the bartender laughs as Jungsoo and Heechul put down their glasses. “Don’t want you passing out here until tomorrow, hmm?”

“Hey Heechul,” Jungsoo mumbles, his voice noticeably more slurred than before, and a lopsided smile fixed across his lips as he reaches over to tap Heechul lightly on his shoulder, “You wanna unwind some more?”

It takes a moment for the suggestion to click in Heechul’s mind, but when it does, he likes the notion immediately. Thoughts clouded with a mix of too much alcohol and being starved of human contact for months, he’s more than happy to oblige as Jungsoo gets up from his seat at the bar - albeit a little unsteadily - and heads for a darker corner of the club away from the pulsing lights and alcohol-fuelled bodies. 

“You sure?” Jungsoo breathes out quiet. Heechul figures that it probably  _ would _ be bad if they were to get caught - if anyone spread anything, he’d probably have a lot of explaining to do to the press, who’d jump at any chance to report scandals of anyone remotely famous, barely-there musician or not. 

“Yeah,” Heechul murmurs back, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips as he brings Jungsoo further back into the dark, “Fuck society, man.”

The first time Jungsoo tries to kiss him, he can barely see in the gloom of the absent club lights, and he’s so drunk he can barely stand still on his own two feet, so he ends up planting a kiss on the bottom right corner of Heechul’s mouth instead. “Sorry,” he whispers, and Heechul can feel a breathy laugh bubble out of him.

“You’re cute,” he replies, feeling the corners of his lips folding into the hint of a smile as he leans forward and captures Jungsoo’s lips in his own instead. He can taste the alcohol they’ve just had on Jungsoo’s lips, and when he deepens the kiss Jungsoo is far from protesting. When they do break apart for air, it doesn’t last long, and they melt back into the second kiss, this time without mishaps, and just as good as before. Or better. 

They’re on their third when Heechul’s phone vibrates for what seems like the hundredth time, and this time he barely feels guilty for abandoning Donghae.  _ Well, he’s a grown man _ , he reasons as Jungsoo’s fingers find their way through his hair,  _ And he’s literally only had one shot, I’m pretty sure he’s going to be fine. _

It’s only after they’ve kissed long enough for Heechul to be uncertain of whether he’s drunk off the alcohol he’s consumed, the alcohol off Jungsoo’s lips, or just Jungsoo in general that they break apart without following up with another one. Heechul is the one to speak first, leaning against the wall, suddenly grateful for the support because it feels as though his legs are about to give out from under him. “Good unwinding?”

Jungsoo shoots him a grin, hard to see in the dark, but there nevertheless. “The best,” he responds. “Are you getting yourself home now?”

Heechul lets out a noncommittal hum, pulling out his phone to check the time while ignoring the long list of missed calls from the one and only Lee Donghae. “Didn’t realise time flew by so fast,” he chuckles, genuinely surprised at his screen displaying  _ 02:57.  _ He had told Donghae he’d only be there for a while, so they’d leave by two at max. Well, he supposes there are times where people can’t keep their promises.

“I guess I should be going,” he says, scanning the crowds that are still packed with people. He can’t see Donghae, which hopefully means he’s gotten himself home already. “See you around. I mean, possibly. But hopefully.”

Jungsoo’s smile is infectious. “Hopefully,” he echoes, his tone bright, “Get yourself home safely, Heechul.”

“You too,” he calls over his shoulder as he walks over to the bar to say his parting greetings to the bartender before exiting the club to get himself a taxi.

Summer is beginning to melt into autumn, and the faint bite of wind is becoming increasingly perceptible especially at three in the morning, but at least, whether it be the alcohol or the way the night unfolded, he’s warm.

It’s been a while since he’s had a night out that he doesn’t regret one way or another, he reflects as he clambers into the taxi, grateful for the warmth it provides regardless or whether or not his heart feels all fuzzy and glee. Usually he’s out to grab the strongest drinks he can so he can watch the world fade away for a little while, so that he can wake up the next morning with a throbbing hangover and zero recollection of everything that happened.

_ But this time _ , Heechul thinks as he watches the city lights pass in blurred streaks,  _ I want to remember _ .

**Author's Note:**

> so uhhh it's been a while since i've written teukchul, or anything for that matter, but hope you enjoyed :P


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